By Barbara Kollmeyer

From Zor Capital’s money manager Joe Fahmy, via Reformed Broker’s Josh Brown, comes the view that “one foot out the door” behavior is keeping the market bid. In other words, “weak hands are forced back in, as they are made even more uncomfortable by the market rebounding without them,” says Fahmy.

Yes, the bulls are back, notes Brown, but they are some of the “most non-committal, skeptical bulls we’ve ever seen.” Morgan Stanley said it plain enough yesterday, that the market won’t slump because there isn’t enough ammunition for a bear case right now. Promises, promises, though they are putting their money where their mouth is with a list of what they’re buying.

Meanwhile, check out this list of the 40 top performing stocks year-to-date from Bespoke Investment Group. As the blog points out, all ten S&P sectors are represented, but there are no 100% gainers in the index. It will take big gains over the next three-and-a-half months to make that happen, says Bespoke. Then you move over to the Russell 3000
/quotes/zigman/1652139/delayedRUA, and plenty are up more than 100%, thanks to biotech. Worth a read, if you’re looking for trends while waiting for this market to actually do something again.

As for justification for that “one-foot-out-the-door-bull” theory, one can hardly blame them when there are calls like this floating around. From Bank of America Merrill Lynch comes the prediction that the S&P 500
/quotes/zigman/3870025/realtimeSPX is headed for a rebound into the 1942/55 zone. But then it’s going to roll over again and then go into a much deeper decline toward the 200 daily moving average (currently 1,863.72). Geopolitics could move this along – like, say, Putin’s humanitarian convoy turns out to be a Trojan horse.

The economy: The National Federation of Independent Business will release its monthly gauge of small businesses for July at 7:30 a.m. Eastern. Then job-openings data is coming at 10 a.m. Eastern. Here’s a preview.

Quote of the day:“Death is nature’s way of saying, “Your table’s ready.” Robin Williams, dead at 63.

Call of the day:Apple and Samsung
/quotes/zigman/189457/delayedKR:005930 are set to lose global smartphone market share, to the tune of 14% and 25%, respectively, by 2015, predicts Fitch in a new note. “The decline will be due largely to rising competition in emerging markets, where lower-priced handset models from local competitors should continue to gain market share at the expense of the big two,” say the analysts. Combined smartphone shipment volume for the two should stagnate at around 450 million-460 million units in 2014, even as the global smartphone market rises by 20% to 1.2 billion, they say. Not even innovations such as curved screens or wearable devices will affect this trend, they added. Ahead of this, Sanford Bernstein bull Mark Newman slashed his 12-month price target on Samsung earlier Tuesday, citing loss of market share to Chinese smartphone brands.

Chart of the day: Are stocks cheap relative to corporate profits? This chart from James Paulson at Wells Capital Management may be saying just that. He explains the chart, which shows the S&P 500 index relative to after-tax U.S. corporate profits:

“Despite a more-than-doubling of the stock market from its low in 2009, relative to corporate profits, stocks are currently no more expensive than they were in 1985 and 1952! Does the bull market have further to go?”

You be the judge.

Random reads: Three years paid maternity leave? Let’s all move to China.

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